IPS 3535 
.172 P6 
1904 
Copy 1 




POEMS AND ADDRESSES 



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BT G. F. RINEHART 



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Foms AND Addresses 



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G. E 



. RlNEHART-,rN^WTaN„,lQWi:i 



COPYRIGHT 1904 BY C. F. RINEHART 
NEWTON. iOWR. 



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LlbRAKY of CONOiRtSS 
Two Cepies Received 

JAN 28 1904 

Copyright Entry 
CLASS ^ XXc. No. 
J COPY B 



INDEX. 

Lawyer.-^ and Doctors, Medical Banquet .... i 

The Vice of Slander, Jury Trial 5 

Personal Injury, Jury Trial 10 

Apostrophe to Genius, From Speech 13 

Is It Better to Die?, Medical Banquet 15 

Squibs on Squills, Medical Banquet . . * • • 16 

Immortality, Poem 19 

Woman's Club 20 

■s 23 

Mountain Scenes, Travel 26 

Ti;ibiice;.tp.'L3b^rtYj'»PaiT(JlT,et», 29 

J))i\:,:i,'Dpibt:li;:F^'eui .. .:•..•• ^^ 

Here's to Newton, Poem 7^7, 

The Circus, Poem . . 34 

Seat Reserved for You, Poem 35 

The Character of Byron, Literary 36 

The Pioneers, Old Settlers Reunion 40 

Brother or Brute, The Race Question .... 42 

An Age of Gold, Poem 44 

Pat Flannegan's Mishap, Poem 46 




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LAWYERS AND DOCTORS 

Although I feel wholly inadequate to the task 
assigned me, I feel that something is due you from 
me in appreciation of the prescription you have just 
given me, which I found so easy to take. I confess 
that it has not always been thus. 

It is good policy for you to treat the lawyers 
well, so that they can defend you the first time you 
are caught extracting microbes from somebody's grip. 

I have taken for my text tonight a very remark- 
able truth from Second Chronicles: "And Asa, in 
the thirty and ninth year of his reign, was diseased 
in his feet, until his disease was exceedingly great; 
yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to 
the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers." 
That is the usual result. 

It seems that when Job had tried all the doctors 
without avail and when he was just boiling all over 
as it were, he arraigned the profession in pretty strong 
terms as "forgers of lies." Ever since then the 
doctors have been our expert witnesses. 

In the subject assigned me, the doctors and law- 
yers are co-ordinated as through the committee in- 
ferred that there were strong points of resemblance 
between them. Perhaps this is true. By their fees 
ye shall know them. 

Pope's oft repeated couplet, 
"A wise phvsician, skilled our wounds to heal 
Is more than armies to the public weal," 
seems to afford the doctors a great deal of consolation. 



You will observe however, that Pope is careful to 
qualify his statement by saying, "wise" physician. 
Again; there is a little ambiguity in the second line, 
for his comparison with armies might be taken to 
mean that the doctors are the more destructive. I am 
willing, however, to give the doctors the benefit of 
the doubt. Pope is to be considered innocent until 
proven guilty. On the presumption of his innocence, 
however, the doctors owe him a debt of gratitude for 
his amiable spirit of self-sacrifice in their behalf. 
The man who remains an invalid his whole life long 
and yet retains a good opinion of the doctors certain- 
ly deserves a harp. 

While Pope stands by the doctors, Shakespeare 
stands by the lawyers. He pays a gallant tribute to 
the legal profession when he says: 

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." 
He evidently wanted to make the doctor's yoke easy 
and his burden light. 

As long as men continue to want things they 
don't get they will need lawytrs. iVs long as they 
continue to get something they don't want they will 
need doctors. A doctor is an absolute necessity to 
any man who can run fast enough to catch cold. 
When you sit in a draft the doctor is the only man 
who can cash it. When the lawyer pulls your leg 
the doctor is the only man who can set it. W'hen 
the doctors themselves disagree, it is heart failure. 

Doctors have been said to "take life easy." I 
have always regarded this as a slander on the pro- 
fession, for some men die hard. A cheap doctor, 
however, may be said to bring sickness within the 
reach of all. This is no doubt the reason that all 
practitioners like to be addressed as "dear doctor." 
They usually are dear, and, though they frequently 
recommend change to their patients, they usually end 
up by taking all the change their patients have. 

Lawyers are inclined to cultivate friendly re- 
lations with the doctors because they do not wish to 



be angels as long as there is a chance to hold their 
present jobs. They do not wish their names where 
the doctor's records are said to be kept. Speaking of 
tombstones leads to grave thoughts. It is the law- 
yer's desire to keep the cemeteries free from epitaphs 
like this: 

"Here lies a lawyer, honest man, 
Cinch him Devil, if you can." 
"Here lies," is somewhat ambiguous anyhow. If 
death cannot stop lying, then veracity is at an etern- 
al discount. 

Life has been said to be full of trials. This 
probably accounts for so many lawyers. Lawyers 
mav be said to "do their work with a will" when the 
doctors get through. 

Talk may be said to be cheap until a lawyer 
does the talking. It is claimed that lawyers have 
been talking ever since the time of Balaam. 

When people "take things as they come" they 
need a lawyer. If they do not take enough to pay a 
good fee they are likely to find that the judge is a 
man of few words and long sentences. 

When Adam and Eve were accused of petty lar- 
ceny they were tried without lawyers. No wonder 
they simply raised Cain. True, they had nothing at 
the time with which to fee a lawyer, but if the case 
had been continued they could have done so, for it 
was not long before they got Abel. I am of the opin- 
ion that there was a strong defence for the woman. 
A good lawyer would have pleaded an alibi. He 
would have said, "not this Eve, some other Eve." 

The first doctor was a howling savage with 
earrings for hi.s Sunday clothes. By looking over 
this assemblage I observe some improvement. You 
are dressed a little fuller than your ancestor, and you 
do not need a lance to bleed your patient. 

The development of medicine has been retarded 
by chronic kickers. The people are extremely mod- 
est about offering themselves as subjects upon which 



4— 



to demonstrate the mending or ending effects of some 
new drug. The lawyers are more fortunate. They 
deal wholly in precedents, and all responsibility for 
mistakes is laid to some antiquated judicial decision 
rendered in the sainted past. The lawyer thus re- 
fers his mistakes to Rome, the doctor to the cemetery. 

The lawyer feeds and fattens on the past. The 
tree of jurisprudence is the growth of all the years. 
This makes the lawyer an antiquarian. Through 
musty decrees he must dig and delve. Legal princi- 
ples must be chased time out of mind. 

The doctor liv^es wholly in the present. He lives, 
moves and has his being in sickness and disease. He 
must diagnose and cure. He is interested in the 
past only as a museum in which are stored the relics 
of early struggles, where Cuvier is labeled, Harvey 
marked and Jenner identified. He is interested in 
new discoveries, the development of new theories, the 
application of new remedies. 

The lawyer must explore the ages and rummage 
through the field of thought. He must garner here, 
pluck there, sift everywhere. He is a student of hu- 
man nature, and human nature is as human today as 
it was when our first foremothers on our father's side 
and our first forefathers on our mother's side, quarrel- 
ed over the ownership or equitable division of their 
first edible snake. 

The principles of justice are jusc the same today 
as they were when Cain slew Abel; as when the meek 
Moses killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the 
sand. Conditions often change, but rights never. 
Principles prevail though ages vanish. 

The doctor is devoted to his patients, the lawyer 
to his clients. The relations of each to each are sac- 
red and inviolable. Each has his duty to perform, 
his responsibilities to be met. One defends man from 
disease, the other from injustice. Each must be con- 
tent with the reward of an approving conscience, 
which is the result of duty nobly done. 



For the man who arises at all hours of the night; 
for the man who faces all kinds of weather; for the 
man who confronts all kinds of disease; for the man 
who has a kind and sympathetic word to dull the 
edge of grief; for the man who battles with the plague 
of death when even friends forsake; for the man 
whose presence is a benediction to inspire with hope; 
for the man who fears no consequences to himself, 
who recognizes no obstacles, who surmounts all diffi- 
culties, who claims his first allegiance to the divinity 
of duty; for the man who does what he can to aniele- 
orate the condition of his fellows, who stands like an 
armed gladiator to do battle with the monster death, 
I have but the sentiment of supreme respect. There 
is, there can be no nobler calling. The doctor greets 
us at the dawn of life when hope is trembling in the 
clutch of chance, when agony is merging into grief 
or joy. He is with us at the eve, when grief sur- 
renders to eternal hope. 

I cannot more fittingly close than by suggesting 
this toast: "May you long avoid the necessity of tak- 
ing your own medicine." 



THE VIGB or SUAINDBR. 

Gentlemen of the Jury: You are called upon to 
exercise one of the chief prerogatives of citizenship. 
You are here to exercise a function conferred by the 
Constitution, the great charter of Americon liberty 
and justice. Your power is conferred by the highest 
authority known to men. God grant that you acquit 
yourselves of its exercise with an approving conscience 
as becomes reasoning and feeling men. You are to 
exercise all of the faculties that distinguish man from 
the lower animals. You must reason, analyze, weigh, 
sift and balance the evidence and render a verdict in 
accoraance with those high ideals of equal and exact 



justice that receive the respect and admiration of the 
human race. I have full confidence in your integrity. 
I believe you will keep ever in your minds the high 
responsibilities you have temporarily assumed and re- 
member that for the time being, the administration 
of justice is in your hands. 

This is an extraordinry case. It has few if any 
parallels in the entire history of jurisprudence. A 
precedent is to be established by your determination, 
involving the interpretation and validity of the Cor- 
stitution of our country, the principles of the Declar- 
ation of Independence, and all of those high ideals of 
right that are the outgrowth of the civilization of all 
the years. 

The Declaration of Independence has been called 
the bravest and grandest political document ever 
penned. It is the embodiment of truths that are 
eternal. It proclaims that all men are created equal. 
This doctrine is the bulwark of our institutions, the 
foundation stone of liberty, the scale of that equal 
and exact justice, to secure which, the Constitution of 
our country was ordained. 

Does this assertion of equality mean that all men 
have equal capacities and equal advantages of birth 
and opportunity? Does it mean that whites and blacks 
are equal socially, morally and intellectually? Does 
it mean that the negro is as cultured as the white 
man? No, gentlemen of the jury, it simply means 
that the law is no respecter of persons; that rich and 
poor, old and young, white and black, are equal be- 
fore the law. It means that the majesty of jurispru- 
dence throws its protecting mantle over all races and 
all colors, and that the flag of our country shall guar- 
antee protection to all who pay to it the tribute of al- 
legiance. There are no differences, no distinctions in 
the democracy of the law. It is as potent to shield 
the child of poverty as it is to guard the pampered 
offspring of the plutocrat that rcmps in silk. It stands 
guard above the cradle of the babe and above the 



—7. 



coffin of Ihe dead. It is color blind. No man can 
be too black in face and white in heart, and no man 
can be too white in face and black in heart, but that 
the law is potent to punish the one and protect the 
other. 

I never meet a colored man that I do not feel 
like apologizing to him for the crimes inflicted by 
my race on his. If the Almighty ever calls upon us 
to expiate the crime of enslaving the colored race we 
are likely to be damned through all eternity. It was 
my race that forced and seduced the naked, trembling 
Ethiopean from his sunny Afric home; it was my 
race that packed these people like cattle in the holds 
of ships to revel in filth and die with the plague of 
suffocation; it was my race that reaped the profit from 
their labor in this colder zone where the brutalities 
of the master and the vigor of the climate wrought 
their work of destruction; It was my race that bred 
these blacks like beasts and brutes for symmetry and 
brawn; it was my race that trafficked in these hum- 
an souls as you would deal in sheep and swine; it was 
my race that sold these beings en the auction block 
to toil that other hands might reap; it was my race 
that sundered every human tie, that reached the 
depths of all villainy, that sold husbands from wives 
and babes from mothers; it was my race that perpe- 
trated all these infamies as remorselessly as the 
butcher slaughters beeves, as coolly as children swap 
their treasured toys. All the crimes of all the cen- 
turies, all the outrages chronicled in the long night 
of mediaeval years, loose precedent and prestige in the 
infftui}' of slavery. I thank God that I am permitted 
to live in a country that throttled this institution; 
that I live in an age that abhors and execrates the 
memories of this monstrous wrong; that I swear al- 
legiance to a flag that floats serenely over aland with- 
out a master and without a slave. 

I can find no language adequate to characterize 
the enormity of slander. It is the sting of the insect. 



■ 8— 



the bite of the mad dog, the poison of the poppy, the 
venom of the serpent. It is that which wounds and 
maims and kills without a physical mark or brand, — 
a burn that leaves no scar. It brands and blisters, 
blears and blights and blots; it wrecks and worries, 
wounds and grieves and pains, — it sears and severs. 
To properly appreciate this crime, one must have 
visited the dens and lairs and caves where creep and 
crawl the frightful monsters of the tooth and fang. 
He must have heard the roar of anger, the howl of 
rage, the snarl and hiss. He must have seen the 
tiger spring, the lion leap, the serpent strike. He 
must have felt the delirium of drunkenness, the tor- 
ture of the damned in hell. No civilized man can 
mete and measure the awful infamy of slander. I 
loathe, I hate, I abhor, I execrate his damnable crime. 
It is the sum of all villainies, the essence of all of- 
fences. Like a slow poison it prolongs the agonies 
of its victim. It is a long continued torture, — the 
green wood on the funeral pile. 

If I am at a loss to find words to characterize the 
crime of slander, I am more at a loss to find language 
appropiate to the portrayal of the criminal. The 
man who will willfully and maliciously abuse the 
heavenly gift of speech deserves that the tongue that 
utters it should palsy. He surrenders that which 
gives him preeminence above the beast to a use tl:at 
debases him below the beast. He is no longer a man. 
The serpent gives a warning ere it stings, but, unlike 
the serpent, the slanderer stings wit out warning. 
For the serpent's sting there is an efficient cure, but 
for the poison of the slanderer there is no panacea. 
There is no opiate for libel, no healing power for de- 
traction, no cure for calumny, no salve for the 
wounds of scandal. Even thieves have honor, but 
the slanderer has none. The devil has respect for 
truth, but the slanderer has none. Find excuses for 
the murderer who perpetrates his crime in the heat of 
passion; cover with the mantle of charity the highway 



9 

robber impelled by want; hide the sin of the wanton 
driven by necessity to the barter of her soul for bread; 
but exonerate if you dare the cold blooded wretch 
who blackens the reputation of his fellows! 

The calumniator strikes at the whitest virtue. 
No character is too chaste for the exercise of his 
damnable calling. He blackens reputations when he 
ougfht to be blackingr shoes. He would traduce the 
Virgin and defame the Christ. No greatness can es- 
cape his poisoned arrows; no power is strong enough 
to curb his venom or stem the flow of gall from his 
villifvino; ton^jue. Must virtue submit to the lash of 
calumny? Is there no redres:^ for the ornevous wounds 
of innocence? Is there no defence against surmises, 
rumors and conjectures formed and fashioned into the 
monstrosity of slander? This is a weapon used by 
cowards and poltroons. It comes like a thief in the 
night. It attacks from behind. It is keen edged and 
sharper than the steel of Damascus. It enables the 
vermin of society to desolate the home, ravish honor 
and destroy the nobility of manhood. It is a slow- 
eating cancer that saps the vitality of its victims. It 
affects the strongest and the best. It is irresistible. 
No man knows when it will strike nor how deep the 
wound. It is more venomous than the stings of all 
the insects, than the fangs of all the reptiles. Sin 
never gave birth to a fouler whelp. It robs of a good 
name; it taints the blood, and lingers like a pall over 
the future of its victims. It is a greater crime than 
robbery, because it takes that which is beyond the 
power of man to restore; that which is inestimable to 
the owner and valueless to others. It is a greater 
crime than m:irder, because the tainting of blood is 
worse than the shedding of it. 

The circumstances of this case are particularly 
aggravating. This slander was iterated and reiterated 
with malice aforethought. It was proclaimed from 
the house top at all times and on all occasions. Here 
is a peaceable, law-abiding colored citizen known to 



—10- 



you all. He swears allegiance to the flag. He abides 
by the rules and regulations of our social order. The 
government has pledged to him its protection; has 
sui rounded him with the arm of the law that guaran- 
tees its equal privileges. He labors for his bread. He 
goes about in the regular course of life and all at 
once he is branded as a criminal. He is pointed out 
to his fellow men as the perpetrator of a heinous 
crime. All of his past life, all of his attempts to 
establish himself as a man among men, as a credit 
to a race we regard as inferior, — all has gone for 
naught. He is shunned and avoided and he knows 
not why. He is pointed out as a crim.inal, as one 
who belongs in the penitentiary. Not only has 
his reputation suffered, but the repute of his family, 
no less innocent than he, is smeared and sullied and 
stained by the filth of slander. 

"The flying rumor gathered as it rolled. 
The tale was scarcely sooner heard than told; 
And all who told it added something new. 
And all who heard it made additions too; 
In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew, 
Thus, flying east and west and north and south; 
It travelled and increased from mouth to mouth." 
Though there is no balm for the wound of calumny; 
tho' there is no hangman's noose for the assassin of 
character, the law that is no respecter of persons has 
provided a remedy in the form of damages. Not that 
reputation can be bought, for it is priceless, but that 
the criminal shall be made to pay a penalty for his 
crime, and that his victim shall receive a slight rec- 
ompense for suffering endured. Thus the false ac- 
cuser becomes himself the convicted criminal, justice 
is satisfied and the majesty of the law sustained. 



PBRSOINAb INJURY 



Gentlemen of the Jury: No man can over-esti- 
mate the money damage of personal injury. No man 



—11— 

has ever fixed a price upon a shattered nerve. No 
power can mete and measure all the worth of grief 
and pain. 

Here is an old man, once hale and hearty, robust 
beyond his years, stricken down in a moment to an 
invalid for life. What can be more brutal than the 
criminal nesflio-ence that sets a trao for the undoinp- 
of the innocent? Here is a well-constructed man-trap, 
built by a corporation \C'hose business it is to cater to 
the welfare and safety of its citizens. This trap is 
forever set, always ready for action. It is eternally 
vigilant. Never for a single moment does it relax. 
It lies awake both night and day to stab and maim 
and mangle and destroy. It is no respecter of persons. 
The gray hairs of the venerable, sanctified by time, 
cannot deter the blow. Youth and vigor, strength 
and maturity, age and decrepitude, — all are alike 
treated by this deadly enemy, this fatal menace, that 
like the midnight assassin with drawn dagger lies in 
wait to spring upon its victim. 

This old man falls. The shock jars every bone, 
strains every muscle, wounds every nerve, and wrecks 
the tissues through which the blood transmits the el- 
ements and essences of life. He is picked up dazed, 
his mind clouded, his reason momentarily shattered, 
his sense befogged. He is helped to his home as one 
who wanders in an indistinct and aimless dream. He 
sees but does not sense, he hears but does not compre- 
hend. In a little w4iile he feels the twinge of pain; 
the strained muscles begin to swell and the old man 
is in distress. His injury is not one of the kind that 
kills outright. It is the green wood on the funeral 
pile; it is slow torture. Day after day passes and his 
aches and pains decline in proportion as bruised 
nerves grow dull and dead. The shock has shattered 
all his future hopes and filled his coming years with 
an element of uncertainty. Over his body there slow- 
ly creeps a living death, — the most aw^ful calamity of 
human contemplation. Paralysis, dread and deadly, 



—12— 

subtle and sinuous, creeping and crawling cell by cell, 
fibre by fibre, every touch of its cold and clammy 
hand bringing its victim nearer to a waiting grave. 
The nerves refuse to do their life-long tasks. They 
act no longer as the spies upon external objects. They 
resign the occupation of tale-bearers, — they mutiny. 
No longer will they guard with fidelity the citadel. 
They leave the frail and tottering fortress open to 
attack from every side. The}> no longer bear to the 
commander-in-chief dispatches from the front. The 
sentinel muscles are sleeping, no longer able to hear 
the awakening message from the brain. 

In the midst of life this old man is in death. 
His step will not obey his will. His motions are er- 
ratic and uncertain. The organization that once 
moved like' a magnificent machine, adjusted by the 
Master Mechanic of creation, is now disordered, bro- 
ken, maimed and mutilated beyond repair. 

No sadder picture ever confronted the gaze of 
men. Each pose and curve and sweep and swell and 
angle appeals to human sympathy. This bent and 
broken man is as much a monument to the handiwork 
of this defendant corporation as the pyramid of skulls 
was to the brutal Tamerlane. This defective side- 
walk is only another trap set by a Spanish Weyler to 
ensnare an unsuspecting Maceo. This aged and ven- 
erable plaintiff is an innocent sacrifice upon the altar 
of corporate negligence, gross and inexcusable. 

Six months ago this plaintiff was strong and 
manly and upright and vigorous, his sixty-four years 
buoyed and nerved and animated by the spirit of 
early prime. There was potency in his limbs, force 
in his movements. Erect as Apollo, there was elas- 
ticity in his muscles and sprightliness in his step. 
You see him now a stricken old man, a physical 
wreck, maimed and halt and bent and broken by the 
soulless corporation that set a trap for his undoing. 

Racked and strained and pained and tortured this 
old man has been forever ruined by this defendant 



—13— 

without a soul, — this corporation without sympathy, 
— this organization that never shed a tear; — robbed 
and filched and plucked and plundered of peace and 
comfort through the coming years, mind and body 
robbed, by this highwayman, of energy and power. 
Shakespeare said, 

"You take my house when you take the prop 
That doth sustain my house; you take my life 
When you do take the means whereby I live." 
Not only has this defendant stolen from this 
gray haired man his life-long peace, but it has wreck- 
ed and ruined his chance of life in years to come. 
Not content with reducing the probabilites of life, it 
has filled his future prospects with the certainty of 
pain. It has curbed and shackled his liberties, de- 
prived his age of the supporting staff of health, and 
harnessed his usual vigor with the weary weight of 
infirmities as enduring as his life. No longer can 
this broken man perform the labors required. No 
longer can he either provide for his own wants or con- 
tribute to the support of the family he has pledged 
himself to nourish and sustain. In a single moment, 
without provocation and without warning, he has 
been reduced from the strength of manhood to the 
weakness of decrepitude, — from the energy that defies 
to the helplessness that is too feeble to resist! 

Gentlemen of the jury you have a duty to per- 
form. You must sustain that principle of eternal 
justice to which every noble man must pledge his 
reverence and respect. When you return from your 
deliberations and render your verdict, may it be said 
of you as was said on a former occasion of no small 
moment, "Well done thou good and faithful servant." 



APOSTROPHE TO GBINIUS 

A few years ago I stood on the summit of Pike's 
Peak above the miasmas of the world. Before me 



—14- 



was all the wealth of nature, aided and abetted by 
the works of art. I saw the border line where snow- 
capped mountains merged into the plains, where sun- 
shine struggled with eternal shade, and where the 
laughing waters, fresh from virgin snows, were kissed 
to vapor by the fervent sun. 

Around me were enchanted caves upon whose 
roofs and walls there hung the crystal wealth of years 
I saw the railroads wind and creep through tunnels 
long and dark and canons deep and grand. I saw 
them thread their way above the nimbus clouds and 
span the dark abyss where mountain torrents pour. 
I saw them pass by silvery falls where rising mists 
were spanned and arched by all prismatic hues. I 
saw them crawl o'er mines of wealth surpassing Monte 
Cristo's cave and touch at lakes w^hose lucid depths 
invite a Naiad's bath. Above my head the sun and 
at my feet the snow, while just below the flowers 
bloomed, the birds sang, the forests sighed and the 
living waters gurgled, walled by massive mountain 
masonry that reared its rugged heights toward the 
clouds. 

Away to the north proud Denver nestled on the 
Platte; southward giant smelters belched where once 
Pueblos dwelt, while to the west a thousand mines 
gave up their wealth to pick and spade. 

I saw the path by which I came wind ever up 
and up until it reached the heights; — and I thought 
how much like life, an up-hill trail that each must 
tread alone, but yet in tramp with others; where a 
mis step leads down to ruin, and where we blindly 
follow beaten paths and often erring guides, to reach 
at last the crowning peak that chance has robed in 
light or shade! 

As I stood there in that grand solitude, I could 
not help thinking of those who stood upon the intel- 
lectual heights and surveyed the horizon of the infi- 
nite. The way to each is much the same, — a path of 
thought and toil, of care and labor, of tact and talent 



—15— 



and of work, of industry and sense, well worth the 
final view that awes, ennobles and inspires. 



IS IT BBTTBR TO DIB? 

After listening to the effort of my friend and his 
argument for living, I have concluded that it is better, 
after all, to die and be done with it. His response to 
the proposed toast was intended to convince us that it 
is better to live. In taking this view of the matter 
the Doctor is no doubt actuated by purely selfish and 
mercenary motives. He favors living merely because 
he knows that death ends his job. In fact most doc- 
tor's jobs end in death. A man can never be certain 
that he is through with the doctors until he wakes up 
in glory. 

After the doctors had monkeyed with man for 
about a thousand years, one of them happened to dis- 
cover the circulation of the blood. Ever since then 
the whole tribe of doctors has been trying to take the 
blood out of circulation. If they don't bleed the pa- 
tient one way they do another. It is about as well 
to die as to be bled by the doctors, because if you 
wait to be bled by the doctors you will die anyhow. 
Death is the only safe way to beat a doctor's bill. 

Just now there is a great scare over small-pox. 
In self interest the doctors are advocating vaccination. 
Not satisfied with the diseases we already have, they 
want us to have a few more. More diseases the more 
dollars. To the long list of diseases mentioned in the 
almanac the doctors want to add all the diseases of 
the cow. They have already added milk leg and 
milkmaid's knee. Yes, they have given us the foot 
and mouth disease. The mouth disease is a breaking 
out that usually follows a banquet and is diagnosed 
as post-prandial. 

A scientific doctor has just discovered that death 



—16— 

is a germ. This germ theory seems to be working 
over-time now. This particular doctor says that 
death is a germ which joins the life germ in the egg^ 
and that when we hatch out and go to scratching for 
a living we are accompanied by both germs. He 
chinks he has discovered a germicide that conquers 
everything except suicide. In other words, he has 
concocted a potion that kills death. When death is 
dead then dead is death. If death is dead, then death 
still lives. If death still lives then death is not dead. 
When you go home and get in bed try and reason 
this out to your own satisfaction, and when you get 
up in the morning you will agree with me that it is 
better to die. 

If death has been neutralized, and we are to live 
forever, as my friend would have us do, then what 
would become of all the preachers who thrive on the 
fear of death? What would become of the revival if 
we are to live forever? Who could get any music out 
of ^'I want to be an Angel,'' or put the proper ginger 
in "The Home Over There?" What would the un- 
dertaker do for a living? What would become of the 
poor coflin trust? 

When I see some of the old men who torment 
editors; some of the old men who have for years been 
living on somebody elses' time, I think, after all, 
death is a good thing, and I exclaim with the proph- 
et, or the son of a prophet, "O Life, where is thy vic- 
tory; O Death what has become of your stinger?" 



SQUIBB OIN ^QUIbb^ 

If ever one's thoughts should revert to the doc- 
tor, it is just after a banquet. Indigestion is the best 
friend the doctor ever had. While I am convinced 
that the first doctor was a fakir, I have too much re- 
spect for numbers to so characterize the last one. 



-17- 



The first doctor did business on a small capital and 
took his pay in raw materials. There was only one 
disease in his entire diagnosis. That was "Devils." 
His method of treatment w^as to drive them out. To 
do this the doctor proceeded to dance the can-can 
around a rude fire while one of the family played "A 
Hot Time" on the tom-tom. This ought to ^care any 
self-respecting devil to death. Nothing of this doc- 
tor has survived except his language. That still lives 
in the doctor's perscription. 

It is a long stride from the first doctor to the 
last. To realize this you must imagine the pre-his- 
toric medicine man, in somewhat abbreviated cos- 
tume, dancing around a green wood fire with a snake 
in his hand, and then contrast him with the well-fed, 
well-groomed, handsome and self-satisfied doctor of 
today. 

When the blind warbler of the ^gean, Homer, 
was singing of the glories of Greece, medicine w^as in 
a high state of development. Doctors were in exist- 
ence when Asa had the gout. They were doing a 
good business when Job was sorely afflicted, and were 
absolutely flourishing when Peter's wife's mother lay 
sick of a fever. In fact the doctors came into the 
world about the time that mistakes began to happen. 
Before their advent there were Methuslehs; now they 
cut us oft' with three score years and ten. 

The new school of medicine no longer casts out 
devils. It lets the devil remain. Neither does the 
new school bleed its patients — with a lance. The 
new school has adopted a three-fold treatment. It 
first tries squills, then pills, then bills. If the patient 
survives all these he is henceforth immune and can 
defy grim death in all his forms. 

The young doctor just starting out in the prac- 
tice has all the hard rows to hoe. He must begin at 
the bottom. He makes all the long drives, faces all 
the cold blizzards, endures all the hard knocks, and 



-18— 



then sometimes, in spite of all he can do, his patient 
will get well. 

The first man I ever saw was a doctor. I have 
a sort of an idea that the last man I shall ever see 
will be a doctor too. Perhaps this is an illustration 
of the doctrine that the first shall be last and the last 
shall be first. After all, I had rather see the doctor 
last than the next man to follow him. Death is rath- 
er a grave undertaking. 

When I was quite young our family medical au- 
thority was Dr. Hostetter. We always kept his work 
in one volume nailed to the wall where it was handy. 
I remember with what horror I viewed the picture of 
the poor man on the second title page, and I then and 
their vowed that I would never let a surgeon get in 
his work on me. However, as year after year passed 
and Dr. Hostetter furnished us with a new volume 
and the man never seemed to get any worse, I got 
used to him and lost much of my prejudice against 
surgery. 

We can all recall the confidence, not to mention 
pleasure, with which we viewed the almanac. We can 
remember how we used to look it through frequently 
and carefully to see what new thing was the matter 
with us. 

And when we had looked all the almanac through, 

For symptoms of wheezes and sneezes; 
We found — I have found — yes, and you have 

found too, 
We had forty-seven diseases. 

Then, to cheer ourselves up we went to bed and 
sent for the doctor. The good, old man came to our 
bedside, felt of our pulse, looked at our tongue, and 
then with a very grave face told us that he might 
possibly be able to pull us through. It would have 
very materially affected this banquet if he hadn't 
pulled us through. 

After the world had had about three thousand 
years of doctors and the dark ages had come on; in- 



—19— 



deed after the plague had almost depopulated Europe 
and killed off the doctors, a wise Providence sent the 
editor to straighten things out. Then it was that 
squibs began to pay for squills. 



IMMORTAUITY 

Is Life a shoreless sea beneathe whose waves 

A grim Fate sinks what Fortune never saves? 

Is there no hope? No calm, secluded goal? 

Does search reveal no harbor for the soul? 

Are we to drift with every changing tide 

And with the gale be driven far and wide 

Until at last in weariness we drink 

The dregs of death and then, forgotten, sink? 

We ask our inner selves, then cry aloud; 

Uncertainty creeps round us like a cloud 

Through which the eye of faith can see a rift 

Presaging that the pall will sometime lift 

And give an answer in a gleam of light 

To banish once for all the hopeless night. 

It is believed that on the night of death 

A bow of promise greets the eye of faith; 

For, over all the awful gulf and gloom 

Our love has spun a bridge of trust and hope. 

But if, perchance, our phantoms are unreal; 

If dewdrops from the herb and sward should fail 

To find again the sea, if no response 

Is heard to all our cries of want and wish; 

If all continues strange to sense and fact; 

If shrouding veils remain unpierced by sight 

Or sound; if all the fabrics woven of our wants 

And fears should crumble at the touch of Fate; 

If, in this bnst of clay, the sleeping soul 

Is bound by time and space; if all our dreams 

Are but the ghosts of earthly night that fade 

Before the dawn; if at the winds' and waves' 



—20— 

Caprice the barque of Hope must rudderless 

And sailless drift, and wreck itself at last 

On rock and ^hoal, there yet remains a real 

Immortal life. The good can never die! 

A righteous deed, dropped in the sea of time 

Makes cycling ripples through eternity. 

A helping hand, a generous uplift 

Imparts an endless impulse to the world. 

A drop of blo.od on Calvary inspires 

A healing sympathy through all the years. 

The strife of Right with Wrong will end at last 

With Evil shrouded in the arms of Death; 

With Righteousness eternally enthroned 

And robed in splendid Immortality! 



"MBR ROYAl> MIGMNBSS,- WOMAN." 

It little avails man to cite biblical texts and draw 
inferences reflecting on woman. When he quotes 
Genesis to show that woman was then merely a side 
issue as it were, he is confronted with the incontesti- 
ble fact that she has been the main question ever 
since. 

It may be, as it is claimed, that woman and 
trouble came into the world together. Even if this 
is true, I confess that, for myself, I prefer a world of 
trouble with women to a world of perpetual peace 
with nothing but men. 

Woman has been called a delusion and a snare, 
but I prefer to be snared by the delusion. Woman is 
the only creature that can exasperate a man to the 
verge of madness for six weeks and then bring him 
on a short turn to the seventh heaven by simply 
tickling him under the chin. 

I believe .that woman is a good thing, and even 
Paul tells us to hold fast to'that which is good. Like 
Pat I believe one woman is as good as another and 



—21— 

a blamed sight better. True, some women are not as 
they are painted, but this is the fault of the paint. 
Some women are good and true and some aie too good 
to be true. This was no doubt the reason why a phil- 
osophical genius once said that married life was not 
any longer than single life, — it only seemed longer. 

It has been said that the state of matrimony is 
one of the United States. If this is true, then divorce 
is secession and re-marriage is reconstruction. The 
state of matrimony may be truthfully called the most 
productive of the United States. This lead Josh 
Billings to say that there were two things for which 
the residents of this state were not prepared. These 
two things were twins. Perhaps a few of such sur- 
prise parties gave rise to the conclusion that before 
marriage man swears to love, and after marriage he 
loves to swear. 

There can be no doubt that the bonds of matri- 
mony would be more popular as an investment with 
some people if they paid dividends in cash. Those 
who marry for title will have hard work to read their 
title clear. Some people marry for money, but these 
are mostly preachers. Matches are no doubt made 
in heaven, for, if all accounts are true, they are not 
needed in the other place. 

They say that when a man meets his wife down 
town he always wonders how much it is going to 
cost him. Perhaps this is on the principle that a wife 
is always dear to her husband. Wives complain that 
their husbands grow colder toward them in a few 
months after marriao^e and neHect to kiss them with 
such warmth as of yore. The medical profession has 
accounted for this by finding microbes in kisses. 
This proves conclusively that the microbe is not half 
such a fool as he looks. 

Seriously, however, I am a believer in woman. 
I have had confidence in her ever since she charmed 
her first snake. I believe she has every right that 
man has whether she has it patented or not. I am a 



-22- 



believer in woman suffrage. Whenever I see one of 
the fair sex brave enough to enter the arena of con- 
quest to do battle for her rights, I feel like taking my 
hat under my arm and joining in the procession. It 
has been only a few years since women have been per- 
mitted the most ordinary liberties. It was only a 
generation ago that the announcement of a woman 
preacher was read from the pulpit in one of our east- 
ern cities for the first time. The announcement was 
made with contempt and ridicule that "A hen will 
attempt to crow." It is needless to say that it was a 
jealous old rooster that made the announcement. He 
was afraid he would be obliged to come off the perch. 
It is the present generation that has done the 
most for woman. At the entrance of New York har- 
bor stands the seal of friendship between the two great 
republics of the world. It is the Statue of Liberty, 
and more than that it is the statue of woman, holding 
aloft a gleaming torch as the beacon light of progress. 
At the world's Exposition at Chicago there was 
one building erected as the first great tribute to wom- 
an. In it was held the most unique congress of the 
world. From every land and clime the women 
gathered, with thoughts as varied as the flowers, each 
vStriving to secure with speech and pen her rights and 
dues. But then, woman will be free; upon the hori- 
zon of the future there gleams in gold upon the back- 
ground of the blue the thrilling word "emancipation." 
When it comes, 

"Truth and Justice then will down return to men 
Orbed in a rainbow; and like glories wearing, 
Mercy will sit between, throned in celestial sheen, 
With radiant feet the tissued clouds downsteering." 
The world was never made for man alone. If it 
had been there would never have been but one. The 
world was made equally for woman and I believe she 
ought to have her share of it. I believe in giving 
her liberty, in giving her justice, in giving her pro- 
tection. Man ought to be the natural protector of 



—23— 

woman, the natural respecter of the sex. Tlie more 
a manly man sees of evil the more he respects the 
good the more he admires the virtuous and pure. 

Woman is ever true, ever faithful, ever forgiving. 
She is the only being who can wash away the mem- 
ory of a wrong with a flood of forgiving tears. The 
most confiding, she is the last to banish trust. Let 
man sink to the lowest depths of human degradation; 
let him wallow in the sewer of infamy and dishonor; 
let him blot from memory the faces near and dear; 
let him smear and smirch and stain his soul with all 
that blears and blights, — he can never get so near to 
hell that the outstretched arms of woman will not 
welcome his return! 

I can conceive of nothing^ gr-rander than the lov- 
ing trust and confidence of woman. It is she who 
sympathizes, it is she whom loving nature has en- 
dowed with tears. 

There has never been a great event, a great mor- 
al accomplishment of the world, that did not somehow 
owe its success to the influence of woman. All his- 
tory is embellished with the record of her deeds. 
She has made the earth rich in the treasures of love, 
and all the burglar proof vaults and safes turned from 
all the factories, cannot protect a trust with more 
fidelity than she. 



THE AUABAMA HOG. 

A feature of Alabama that persistently refuses to 
be ignored, is the source and inspiration of her ham. 
The Alabama hog is the personification of solid en- 
joyment. Content seems to be his birthright. If 
greatness is solitary he is great, for he forages alone. 
His individuality is paramount. He lives, moves and 
has his being wholly within himself. The outlaw of 



—24- 



the highway, he will turn neither to the right nor 
left. He is the best possible example of the road hog. 

He IS not alone selfish — he is a scrubby, scrawny, 
sensual scapegrace and a glutton. Eating is his sole 
occupation, and he does this to no purpose. He nev- 
er accumulates fat — nothing but mud. 

He preanibulates wheresoever he listeth. His 
light is never hidden under a bushel; on the contrary 
he is everywhere in evidence when his testimony is 
not required. He ascends unto the high mountain 
and he regales himself in the green valley. He toils 
not, neither does he spin; and yet Solomon, with his 
thousand wives, was not half such a hog as he. 

The responsibility of his existence lies some- 
where in the dim and shadowy vistas of the sainted 
past. We read in history where Diana got on her 
high horse and thirsted all over the Roman Campagna 
for his gore. The Greek Artemis tore her abbrevi- 
ated dress hunting for him with a poisoned spear 
among the thorns and briars of the Acropolis. There 
is no doubt but that they both found him at best an 
awful boar. 

Adonis is said to have given Venus the marble 
heart because of his infatuation for chasing the pro- 
genitor of the Alabama hog. He is said to have re- 
fused the opportunities of a lifetime for the glory of 
conquering boars. Soon after he left Venus languish- 
ing in disappointment it was found that he really 
was stuck on the ivories of the brute. To judge from 
the appearance of the Alabama hog I can see that it 
must have been a pleasure to exterminate his race, 
but, after all, Adonis was a fool. Venus, as she is 
painted, is much to be preferred to the great, great 
grand-dad of the Alabama hog. 

Although the twentieth centuiy hog in Alabama 
shows deterioration in statue, his disposition remains 
the same. He is still a hog. That he is erratic is 
evidenced by the fact that he is always in the wrong 
place. He is a creature of uncertain age, and sadly 



—25 — 

in need of the adipose of the Berkshire, the astuteness 
of the Jersey and the amiability of the Poland 
China. He is more inquisitive than a next door 
neighbor and manages to stick his nose in everybody's 
business quite as successfully. His acquisitiveness is 
abnormal and has no parallel in history aside from 
England. He gathers in everything in sight. If he 
does not find enough above the earth he roots below. 
If there is not sufficient provender in the highway he 
leaps the fence for greener pastures. 

There is no authentic case of one of the villians 
ever surrendering to a foe — not even to death. He 
can whip the devil on his own ground in any size 
ring, by any known rules, Marquis of Queensbury 
preferred, and he can outrun any creature with legs 
and give it the choice of track. He is invulnerable 
to persuasion, insensible to force, too mean to live 
and yet he is too contrary to oblige the next genera- 
tion by shufifling off in this. 

Missouri has the "yaller dog," 

That most repulsive brute, 
But Alabama has the hog 

That has the longest snoot; 
His bristles all are firmly set 
And sharper than a brad, 
He always has his back up, yet 

He isnt always mad. 
A menance to the common weal, 

He's never sick a dav. 
Was never known to miss a meal 

And never known to pay; 
A most consumptive looking brute, 

He has the leanest meat. 
And as he has the longest snoot 

He has the most to eat. 
He's often pestered by the dog. 

But he don't care a d , 

He's independent as a hog 
And happy as a clam; 



—26— 

If devils ever enter swine 

There is a score at least 
Of naughty demons who combine 

In this infernal beast. 
Although they need a better breed, 

Way down in Alabam; 
They have at least the very beast 

For making "Deviled Ham." 



MOUNTAIN SCENES 

A long line of snow crowned monarchs, eternal 
as time, rise stately and magnificent into the ethereal 
deeps of space. Frowning clouds gather on their 
brows thundering in impotent wrath and weeping 
coldly glistening tears of hail and snow! Down their 
tremendous sides stretches the avalanche of ice and 
snow, mixed and mingled with enduring rocks cleft 
from the masonry of Omnipotence! On and on we 
go, charmed and awed and inspired by the dawning 
wonders of immensity, calm and stern, cold and co- 
lossal, endless and enduring as the infinity of time 
and space! What variety of hue and form, of light 
and shade beneath the play of sun and shadow! 

Behind us is the billowy ocean of prairie tossed 
into swells and waves and crests, through which we 
have ploughed with a gliding palace of steam and steel; 
to the north the primeval woods thronged with elk 
and moose and bear, the bearers of fur and feathers, 
meat and game, fish and fowl; before us the mountain 
barrier, hoary with the weight of all the years, and to 
the south a wealth of hills given to the flocks and 
herds. 

Bntering the mountains at a magnificent portal 
fit for the palaces of all the kings, we find ourselves 
suddenly in the midst of a magnificence and grandeur 
before which description cowers weak and trembling. 



-27- 



Peak and pinnacle, crag and crown, hoisting- 
their gigantic crests above the clouds as though dar- 
ing the infinite! Castles and cathedrals, steeples and 
spires, domes and temples and cupalos piled and 
heaped and jumbled into a masterpiece of immensity! 
Solemn in solitude, grand and gregarious, they lead 
man from the small to great and broaden the horizon 
of the finite mind. 

The clear and crisp mountain air is invigorating 
and inspiring. Through gigantic gorges move the 
slow glaciers as resistless as fate. Rivers rear and 
plunge through clean cut canons, leap yawning 
chasms, dash in fury against restraining walls, and 
thunder in cataract and cascade, ever on and on to 
meet and greet at last the waiting sea. The train 
creeps on and ever on over the dangerous deeps of 
space, through gorges shaded by the mountain masses 
towering toward the sky, through tunnels long and 
dark and canyons deep and grand, ever up and up un- 
til we reach the summit, and ride in triumph on the 
crest of the greatest continent in the world! 

Through a tortuous descent restrained by the fet- 
ters of a rock ribbed canon, we wind our wav on- 
ward through the Kicking Horse Pass where the riv- 
er of the same name is whirling and rearing and 
plunging and kicking itself into foam and fury. Four 
miles below the summit of the pass we round the base 
of Mt. Stephen, rising abruptly from the railroad 
track to the dizzy height of more than 8,000 feet, 
holding on its pallid brow above our heads a gigantic 
glacier five hundred feet thick, whose deep green and 
glowing ice, is slowly but surely pushing its way over 
a precipice of dizzy height to be crushed to atoms in 
a wreck below! 

Down through a tremendous gorge we push, its 
frowning walls rearing their measureless height for 
thousands of feet above us. The gorge suddenly wid- 
ens and before us bursts a vision of unparalleled grand- 
eur. There looms against the azure blue of a sky 



-28— 



serene the white and glittering, jagged and pointed 
peaks of a snowy range, seemingly an impassible bar- 
rier to the world beyond. In the deep, wide and 
forest fringed valley that intervenes, there nestles the 
Columbia River, that in primeval years heard "no 
sound save his own dashings." The snowy range be- 
vond are the Selkirk mountains and we are at last 
beyond the Rocky Range. Across the Columbia we 
begin the ascent of the Selkirks through canons and 
tunnels and roadways cleft in solid rock, on through 
forests of gigantic trees, until near the summit of the 
range we find ourselves in the midst of a remarkably 
wierd and fantastic group of snow-capped peaks glist- 
ening in the sunlight with their myriad hues. 

Here is an ampitheatre walled by the eternal 
peaks, where the gladiatorial combats of rock and ice 
are fought through all the ages. The whole is wrap- 
ped in the cold and clammy embrace of glaciers where 
for thousands of years the death struggle has proceed- 
ed and where the final victory is postponed for aeons 
yet to be. Glaciers here of such magnitude that those 
among the Alpine crags pale in comparison. From 
each and all come leaping streams laughing at their 
liberation by the wooing sun from the chilling em- 
brace of crystal parentage. 

We suddenly cross the deep black gorge of the 
Fraser river on a massive bridge of steel that seems 
to be hung by a thread in mid-air, plunge through a 
tunnel and emerge into the famous canyon of the 
Fraser River. The grand suddenly becomes the ter- 
rible! Through the blackness of Egyptian night 
where the sunlight seldom penetrates, we thread our 
way by the side of the thundering torrent, furious in 
a mad gallop to the sun and sea. The roar is deafen- 
ing, the scene fascinating in its terror, and we view it 
much as a Trilby would gaze into the fiendish eyes of 
a Svengali, dreading its presence and yet regretful 
when it is no more! 



_29— 
TRIBUTB TO UIBBRTY 

'"I must have liberty, 

Withal, as large a character as the wind." 

— Shakespeare. 

Morality draws the line of demarcation between 
liberty and license. The two terms are mutually ex- 
clusive. License is the very antithesis of liberty. 

I desire to plead for the largest liberty of the in- 
dividual consistent with the highest good. The man 
who fixes its meets and bounds at anything short of 
this is playing into the hands of tyranny. 

We honor Jefferson largely because he was a 
pioneer in the domain of liberty, a hero who blazed 
the way for civilization through all the years to come. 
He explored a realm where few feet had ventured, 
and where death threatened every footfall. 

When he wrote the immortal Declaration of In- 
dependence he wrote his own death-warrant, choosing 
King George III as his executioner. The English 
called it treason. We labeled it patriotism. Defini- 
tions are larg^elv a matter of success or failure. The 
Declaration was a flattering success. 

This great document did not spring forth from 
nothingness into shape and symmetry, — like a Grec- 
ian god, full-grown, full-armed and panoplied, — but 
it is a growth, a development, an evolution, the flower 
and fruition of the years. 

In Micah and in ist Kings we read: "But they 
shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig 
tree, and none shall make them afiaid: for the Lord 
of hosts hath spoken it." 

Here is the first draft of the Declaration of In- 
dependence. 

What could be more in keeping with the idea of 
human liberty than that every human being should 
have a home of his own and be able to sit beneath 
his own vine and fig tree where none should make 
him afraid? 



— so- 
Had it not been for greed and avarice and com- 
mercialism, leading to the aggregation of the vines 
and fig trees in the hands of the few, the Decalration 
of the Almight}^ would have answered for all time 
and Jefferson would have found his occupation gone. 
The Devil made it necessary for another Declara- 
tion. 

Nearly all the evils of modern society can be 
traced directly to disregard for the provisions of the 
Almighty in behalf of His children. Every man un- 
der his own vine and fig tree where none shall make 
him afraid! That is the climax of all political wis- 
dom. That provision is worthy of a God! 

It means liberty. It means independence. It 
means happiness. It means contentment. In means 
peace. It means plenty. It means all of the virtues 
and none of the vices. It means equal rights to all 
and special privileges to none. 

As soon as commercial pirates had dispossessed 
the holders of the soil and usurpers had claimed it as 
representatives of the Creator, human liberty became 
at once a matter of barter and exchange. King John 
was forced by outraged subjects to acknowledge some 
of the most ordinary rights of man, and thus the Mag- 
na Charta became the second draft of the Declaration 
of Independence. The third ana last draft was made 
by Jefferson, being wrested by sheer force from the 
mailed hand of George III, the most "benevolent assim- 
ilator" of his day and generation. 

Liberty is the birthright of every being born. 
In every age of the world it has nerved heroic men 
to deeds of daring. It has made Thermopalae famous 
and the Alamo a shrine. It makes Winkelried a hero 
and ly'Ouverture a saint. Liberty is the blossom of 
martyrdom from Runnymede to Bunker Hill. 
"Whether on the scaffold high 

Or in the battle's van 
The fittest place for man to die 
Is where he dies for man." 



-31— 



I recently stood upon the field of Bunker Hill 
where the gallant Warren fell, and I said as I stood 
there, "Can it be possible that the heirs of this sacred 
spot will ever prove unworth}- of their sacred sires?" 
And I went through Fanueil Hall, the cradle of liber- 
ty, whose walls had echoed the thunders of patriots, 
and I said; "Will the descendants of these pioneers in 
the holy cause of liberty prove recreant to the legacy 
transmitted to their care?" And I found that within 
a stone's throw of that sacred spot; within the very 
shadow of that gray monument on Bunker Hill, the 
patriots of the twentieth century had leagued them- 
selves together on behalf of liberty to protest against 
the national desecration of ideals thundered from 
Fanueil Hall and sustained with sword and bayonet 
on the heights of Bunker Hill. 

And I went down to New York, the metropolis 
of the western world, and I saw in the harbor the 
statue of Libertv, the gift of the greatest republic of 
the east to the greater republic of the west, and I 
found that the torch of liberty had died out in the 
palsied, upheld hand, and I said; "Can it be possible 
that a people can think so much of lucre that it can 
forget liberty?" 

And I went a little farther, to Philadelphia, and 
I saw where the flag was born in the loving hands 
of Betsy Ross. I saw Independence Hall, where the 
Declaration of Independence was proclaimed, and I 
saw the Convention hall, where in 1896 the Declara- 
tion of Independence was annulled, and I said to my- 
self, "If liberty is to die I would rather that she re- 
ceive her death thrust in the most corrupt city in the 
world, and in a state whose political god is Matthew 
Stanley Quay." 

And I continued my pilgrimage yet a little far- 
ther to the nation's capital, where the highest monu- 
ment in the world points heavenward like the finger 
of Destiny, while in its very shadow in recent years 



—32— 

every principle for which that grand memorial stands 
has been ignored and trampled under foot while out- 
raged Liberty, bound and gagged, protested all in 
vain. 

And I went to the department of state where I 
sought out the Declaration of Independence and with 
bowed head viewed that sacred document which 
voices all our hope of liberty, which enshrines all 
onr high ideals, which is the last hope of the republic 
and which represents all the sacrifices of our revolu- 
tionary sires who resisted, with the last drop of their 
patriotic blood, the criminal aggressions of George III; 
and as I stood there and observed the signatures of 
those brave men fading rapidly form the paper stained 
with age, I said; "Can it be that the shades of the de- 
parted have erased their names from a document no 
longer respected by a degenerate age?" 

And when I thought of the principles of that 
Declaration, which had been trampled under foot; 
when I thought of the pulpit and the platform declar- 
ations to the effect that the document no longer ap- 
plied to the American republic and that it was "a lie 
palmed off by the devil on a credulous world," I could 
not find it in my heart to blame them for the erasure. 
It is enough to make a self-respecting shade resort to 
extreme measures to express its disapproval of the 
coldly calculating commercialism which submits with 
alacrity to every demand of avarice and hesitates at 
no infamy in behalf of greed. 

My friends, it is time for a new Declaration. It 
is time that, in the name of liberty, we protest against 
license. We must give liberty to the mind to think 
out the problems of a higher civilization, liberty to 
the hands to labor, and liberty to the marts of trade 
to barter and exchange the fruits of toil the wide 
world o'er. Every man is an equal partner and profit- 
sharer in the common brotherhood of the human race. 



—33— 



BUT, I DOUBT IT. 

It may be that a nation has the right 
To over-ride a struggling weaker state 

Which, in submission to the will of might, 
Accepts the stern decrees of cruel fate 

And fills another's coffers with its gold 

That could a tale of blood and tears unfold. 

It may be that 'die majesty of law 

Can reconcile itself to such an act 
As turning brain and brawn into the maw 

Of grasping greed, where it isstrain'd and rack'd 
To further private ends, and all because 

Such contract slaves have sometime broken laws. 

It may be that the policy is best 

Which drives all doubtful characters abroad 
To tap our neighbor's fondly treasured chest 

Or play upon his innocence with fraud 
That our court records may be read aright, 

"Suspicions, given twenty days or flight." 

It may be that the freedom from arrest 
Insured, by ruf^ans in blue, each class 

Whose occupation ought to be suppressed, 
Gives liberty to filch and thus amass 

An ill-got fortune in a single year 

Wrung from the gamblers' luck and sirens' tear. 



MCRB'S TO NBWTOIN! 

Upon a virgin prairie, forest decked, 
A pole was set in seeming pride erect. 
Upon its point the stars and stripes unfurled 
Proclaimed its due importance to the world; 
And, where that starry emblem kissed the breeze, 
A town was platted, — Newton, if you please. 



34- 



The church, the school and homes of art and grace, 
A town of symmetry upgrew apace; — 
Prosperity awakened to its dawn 
Upon good blood, good brain and sturdy brawn; 
Joy wed to Peace true happiness begat, 
Contentment came, and by each fireside sat. 

Well poised, upon the crest of the divide 
Where waters seaward flow from every side. 
Above the mire and bog where gaunt Disease 
Exhales his pestilence upon the breeze, 
Good Health in benedictton holds his sway 
And wards, as best he can, grim Death away. 

Come Newton, lift your head in conscious pride! 

Thy childhood gone, old age is yet denied; 

To you, in all the strength of manhood's prime, 

The puerile or senile is a crime; 

Look onward, ever up; subdue the heights 

Where sunshine cheers and broader view delights! 



TMB GIRGUS 

The circus we all love so well will very soon be here. 
The bumpkin will be on the ground, and Reuben 

will appear; 
And Sally Ann, without a doubt, that pretty country 

maid, 
Is sure to be on hand to see the circus and parade. 

We'll hear once more the same old clown crack chest- 
nuts as of yore 

And sing again the same old songs we heard him 
sing before; 

Dressed in a suit of calico, a pair of noisy hose, 

A daub of white upon his cheeks and red upon his 
nose. 



—35— 

We'll hear the lion make his roar, the mule will make 
his kicks, 

We'll see them do as oft before, the same diverting 
tricks; 

The dromedary humps himself, the girafTe rubber- 
necks, 

The camel gets his back up in a pair of double decks. 

The Shetland pony will be there to please the little 
tots, 

The zebra dressed up in his stripes, the leopard in 
his spots; 

The elephant, while on parade, will bear his travel- 
ing trunk. 

And the baboon will ape tVem all as sober as a monk. 

The hippopota — mus will all be straightened out in 

time, 
The jaguar will cease to jag, the porcu cease to pine; 
The antelope will cease to lope, the reindeer will go 

dry. 
The roe buck it will cease to row, the lyre bird cease 

to lie. 

The polar bear will growl for ice, all during the 

parade, 
While we will mop our humid brovvs and drink red 

lemonade; 
But let us go and see it through, we're in the game 

to win, 
So here's three cheers for circus day, — we'll throw a 

tiger in. 



SEAT RESERVED FOR YOU 

In that loiig ago, my dove, when first cupid whisper- 
ed love 
And the arm chair seemed full big enough for two; 



■36- 



You were young and blithe and gay, yet you pledged 
your heart away 
To the man who kept a seat reserved for you. 

Since that time we both have whirled through this 
busy, crowded world 
And at times there seemed to be no room for two; 
Yet, my dear, with charming grace, you have held 
the same old place. 
In the seat that I have kept reserved for you. 

As the years have passed away, children came to us 
to play 
And they nestled closely as you used to do; 
But, my love, you'll always find, I am deaf and dumb 
and blfnd 
When they ask me for the seat reserved for you. 



TNB GHARAGTBR OP BYRON 

Impartial verdicts are not to be expected of bi- 
ased juries. Once convict a man of gross immorality 
and whatever he may do is looked upon with sus- 
picion. Byron was tried before the bar of public 
opinion, suffered condemnation, and until his record 
was forgotten he received but meager justice for his 
rhyme. The populace was unwilling that his genius 
should atone for a multitude of sins. During his life 
he was first lauded to the skies, then ostracised, and 
again restored, like a forgiven God, to favor. False- 
hood has not been wanting in blackening his reputa- 
tion. Though his personal faults were as grievous 
as they have been painted by his enemies, it does not 
appear that fact should detract in any way from the 
merit of his verse. Had Eucid committed murder it 
could not have affected the intrinsic value of his Ele- 
ments. Truth from Nero is none the less truth be- 
cause of his myriad crimes. Ideas are the battle of 



—37— 

life, not men, and it belongs to this age of the world 
to deal with Byron as a poet, and accord the due 
measure of justice already too long delayed. 

Byron was, beyond doubt, the result of melan- 
choly conditions, the fruit of a marital mistake. He 
was the legitimate product of heredity and the con- 
ditions attending his development. Should we rash- 
ly condemn the man who comes by his characteristics 
as naturally as he comes by his features? Should we 
blame the victim of a birth-mark or deformity be- 
cause of his misfortune? 

Byron was an extremist and his intensity led 
him into excesses. The vices were to him like hun- 
ger and thirst and he gratified them without regard to 
his reputation. His every act was characterized alike 
for restraint and dissimulation. He had no desire to 
appear other than he was. If he colored an account 
of one of his own reprehensible acts, it was only to 
picture it in darker hues. Born of gloomy conditions 
and reared amid unstable environments, he naturally 
assumed a gloomy and unstable character. His brain 
was fruitful in mental excesses and his body was di- 
rected to physical indulgence. He was eccentric in 
that he was uncertain. His acts did not follow each 
other in logical sequence. It was impossible to pre- 
dict with even approximate precision what his conduct 
might be at any future time. Vacillating to an ab- 
normal degree, he would surprise e\en himself with 
his peculiarities. What he did with avidity one day, 
he would condemn vehemently the next. A mass of 
contradictions, his conduct assumed the inconsisten- 
cies one would expect to follow erratic impulse. His 
ardor burned as a fire lashed to vigor by the gale. 
Intense activity was the only road to peace. His 
childhocTd was a period of individuality and scorn of 
restraint. He atoned for a fault reproved by deliber- 
ately committing a grosser one. Accustomed to un- 
bridled passions in childhood he let them run unre- 
strained through life. A creature of many moods, 



—38- 



each was the result of heredity and environment. 
He mapped and platted his career on the lines of im- 
pulse and inclination. No limits were prescribed to 
the sway of nature. He neither cultivated his latent 
virtues nor restrained his predominant vices. Intense- 
ly irritable, garrulous and reticent in turn, he made 
few friends and lots of enemies. 

His munificence was as superb as his poverty 
was insurmountable. Never free from the importun- 
ities of his creditors, he would continue to borrow 
that he might make generous gifts. Though always 
underpaid, he would return money to his publisher 
when he thought it too much and refuse the next 
offer insisting it was to little. He was feared, hated 
and admired in a breath. The rancorous abuse of 
his enemies often outweighed the adulations of his 
friends and his entire existence was rife with the mu- 
tations he loved so well to study and portray. 

When he first flashed like a literary meteor in 
the social heavens, he was lionized, petted and feted 
like a rare hero. He was young, and youth is suscep- 
tible to flattery. The women caressed him like a new 
Adonis, but, unlike Adonis, he fell a victim to each 
worshipping Venus. He thus began his downward 
career. Day by day his offences against the moral 
code became more marked and shameful. Pious ma- 
trons made him the moral for their tales. He was 
pictured with horns and cloven hoofs. The infamous 
characters of history were compared to the new licen- 
tiate to his disadvantage. The reviews began to fat- 
ten like leeches on his rhyme. Financial troubles 
beset him. His character was attacked so outrage- 
ously that he determined to leave his native land, in- 
sisting that, if what was said of him was true, he was 
unfit for England, and if it were false England was 
unfit for him. Such logic could lead only to exile. 
His unfortunate marriage and separation only 
hastened the enevitable result. His estate was swall- 
owed up by debt, but still proUd and unconquered, he 



—39— 

continued to treat all but his few remaining friends 
with cold and haughty disdain. 

Byron was a natural poet. No subject was too 
cold for his impassioned verse. His genius bubbled 
like the spontaneous outburst of the spring. He drew 
his inspiration from the grand, majestic and sublime. 
He was the poet of nature in her immensity. The 
mountain and the sea found in him their true inter- 
preter. His verse reached the sublimest generaliza- 
tions of philosophy and anon it grew as tender as the 
whisperings of love. The poet of impulse, he poured 
out his soul like the mountain torrent fresh from 
melting snow. He was essentially a towering genius. 
He reached the heights where none could follow. 

He was a many-sided man, a mixture of disturb- 
ing elements, a tissue of interwoven threads of habit 
and heredity, no two of which were in a parallel. 
Highly impressionable, he trembled at the hymeneal 
alter under the half-conscious terror of a grave mis- 
take. As a result of his premonition his wnfe leaves 
him with the babe in her arms; the shadow:^ of mis- 
fortune gather; his reputation is mined, his vices 
magnified and his virtues forgotten: bankrupt, heart- 
torn and despondent, he waves a last proud farewell 
to all that men hold dear. 

"Adieu, x\dieu! my native shore 
Fades o'er the water blue." 

How apt had been his graceful lines attributed 
to Naooleon! 

"I have warred with a world which vanquished 

me only 
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far." 

For the exiled genius who enlisted his all in the 
.<?acred cau«e of libertv; who saved convicts from the 
stake and soldiers from flogging; who quelled insur- 
rections and silenced seditions by his sublime courage 
and magnanimity; who, when stricken with the fatal 
fever, his brain once so powerful for praise or censure 
struggling in delirium, lisped in his last lucid mo- 



mo- 



ments the loving words of sister, wife and daughter; 
for such a man, be he libertine or paragon of virtue, 
I have but the sentiment of profound pity and respect. 
A nature as noble as it was dissolute; a generosi- 
ty as grand as it was unavailing; a mind as haughty 
as it was brilliant, all make a combination that fur- 
nishes to history but one Byron, whose philosophic 
dreams embrace the highest thought of all the years. 

We see him view from Genius' height 

The wreck of former days. 
His curses all invoked on might 

While justice won his praise. 

We see him gaze upon the deeps 

With rapture beaming eyes 
And eulogize the dust that sleeps 

Beneath Italian skies. 

We see him wave with flashing eye 

To home his farewell proud. 
To cut for Greece the slavish tie, 

Or win himself a shroud. 

Vv^e see him in the fever when 

Grim death claimed all his worth, 

The poet-peer of England then, 
Now poet, peer of earth. 



THE PIOINBCRS 

I love the man of nerve who dares to do; — 
The moral hero, stalwart through and through. 
Who treads the untried path, evades the rut, 
And in a forest clearing builds a hut; 
Removes the tares encumbering the soil 
And founds an empire based on chought and toil. 



—41— 

Within his veins the blood of humble birth, 
His purpose stable as the rock-bound earth, 
His mind expansive and his pulsing brain 
Resolving problems not of selfish gain; 
This man will never servile bend his knees; — 
He feels the uplift of the centuries. 

Leviathans for him forsake the main 

And monsters leave the forest and the plain; 

The future holds no terrors for his soul; 

No avarice collects its robber toll; 

No social caste; no parties, clubs nor creeds 

To multiply his cares, increase his needs. 

With wants but few, no Pioneer wall crave 
A crown in life nor flowers on his grave. 
He leaves behind the slavery of style, 
The myrmidons of pride, deceit and guile. 
Enlisting with the cohorts of the free 
The motto on his shield is "Liberty." 

Wliat cares he for the monarch's jeweled crown? 
For prince or plutocrat, for fame's renown? 
The tu.rmoil and the strife of endless greed 
When honest toil supplies each simple need? 
He seeks not glory, yet the future years 
Weave all their laurels for the Pioneers. 

.\nd justly so! To them alone is due 
The march of progress siv^ce the world w^as new. 
They have explored the boundless realm of mind 
x'\ud left their choicest blessings for mankind. 
The realm of matter bears, in every clime, 
Their works substantial as enduring time. 

Then let me, once for all, propose this toast: 
"Here's to those men of all we love the most; 
Those living for the future, not the past, 
Surmounting obstacles however vast!" 
And so, through joys and soitows, smiles and tears, 
I say, "God bless the sturdy Pioneers!" 



—42— 

BROTHER OR BRUTB? 

A just God never imaged brute resembling Him. 
To man he gave dominion over flood and field; 
And, looking on his handiwork, He called it good. 
Of one blood made He man, a gracious brotherhood, 
To multiply, replenishing the earth; to reap 
Reward in Evolution's net development. 

A plastic canvas, man reflects his habitat; 
Takes all his hues and colors from the brush 
That Mother Nature wields with deft dexterity. 
This master painter shapes her best creations so 
There seems to be distinction when in fact there's none: 
What vSeems to be distinction is variety. 

A tropic clime makes dark the skin. That skin is 

white 
Where snow reflects its gleam through centuries; 

there is 
No more to ethnic brand than plain environment. 
When white reflects and black absorbs, why jeer and 

damn 
Through all eternity, a freak of light or shade? 
Why brand as a misfortune accident of birth? 

Dost speak of wrong? Then listen while I paint for 

you 
A picture of the crimes that make the Devil blush 
Because of his sheer incapacity to form 
In thought alone, much less indeed to execute 
The awful wrongs, indignities and horrors that 
Appeal to heaven high for an avenging hand. 

Ivook on that continent with foliage so dark, 
Its soil touched with a rare fecundity; its streams 
Fern-banked, where alligators sun themselves in peace; 
Where plumaged birds and chattering apes disport 

themselves 
Upon the trees; and where, in forest glades, is heard 
The tread and trumpet of the earth's leviathan. 



—43— 

'Twas here that God set down in liberty His child. 

'Twas here it grew as free as bird and wild; dark- 
skinned, 

Clean-limbed and fleet of foot; and here the child was 
found 

By shapes in human form who seized and bound and 
stole 

Without remorse, this being imaged like a God; — 

Stole birthright, home and God's best gift called 
liberty. 

Thus bound and shackled, days and weeks through 

forest path 
The slave w^as dragged unwillingly until he came 
Unto the sea. A ship was there to bear him on 
To worse calamity. Into the murky hold 
Where dark and damp performed their work of dread 

and death 
This child was tossed to share the fate of kindred 

souls. 

Unused to bonds, familiar with the air, this child, 
God's handiwork, was caged, imprisoned, forced to 

breathe 
The fold and stifling air from which was gone for aye 
The life sustaining principle; and there like rats, 
Like vermin vile and nauseous, the weaker died 
And fed the hungry sharks that roamed the southern 

sea. 

At last the vessel lands; upon the sVore await 

Some creatures God has also made, with faces white 

Through centuries of frost and snow. These men 

are there 
To buy the beings in the vessel's hold, that they 
May slave within a land called free, for men called 

brave; 
Called e(|uals in the Master's Christian brotherhood. 

The brutal lash was pay in full for years of toil; 
And all the sacred ties that decency reveres 



-44— 



Were vSiindered by these fiends, — these so-called Chris- 
tian men 

When wives were torn in tears from husband's bleed- 
ing arms; 

When suckling babes were sold from mother's throb- 
bing breasts 

And comely maidens went to gratify white lust. 

O God! How can we look to Thee and curse the 

child 
That we have wronged so grievously? How can we 

sneer 
At one that we have helped to blight? Why not 

atone 
For all our crimes by lifting up this child deformed, — 
Mis-shapen by the cruelties of countless years, — 
From whom we stole his birthright and his liberty? 

'Tis not enough to turn him loose upon the world 
To battle for subsistence, when the implements. 
The weapons all are in the hands of those who are 
His economic foes. He needs a friend to stand 
Four square to all the Avinds that blow; to succor and 
Sustaiu, to lift and light and guide his steps aright. 



AN AGE OF GObD 

"The proper study of maukind is man." 
The seer was wise; he knew that man was wont 
To deal in futures; risk is soul for power 
Tosieze and hold what greed of gain could grasp 
While mounting heights of cold commercialism 
To cry exultingly "Excelsior!" 

He knew the trend and tendency that kills; 
He knew the pinnacles of place and power; 
He knew deceit and wickedness and guile 
Were idols false as hell; and yet he knew 



—45— 

That man, though imaged like a god, would sell, 
Debase, debauch and damn himself for gold. 

What signifies the riches of the world? 

The paltry baubles that amuse the babe, 

The social trappings of the bawd and boor 

Who gamble for the dalliance of an hour 

While Labor barters brawn at every mart 

And Virtue stalks the street and begs for bread? 

What means the monument that lauds the dead? 
The miracles of stone that house a king? 
The masonry of cities, spires and domes? 
What means the empire stolen from the weak? 
The gorgeous pageantry, the pomp of power 
That points to progress in material things? 

The highest genius of the race is turned 
To fashioning dread instruments of death; 
And floating forts, and shots to sink them with, 
That war may thus annihilate the race 
Which mutters mummeries and follows forms 
While bowing meekly to the Prince of Peace. 

This age is thus perverted; and the truth 
And righteousness remain as strangers, while 
Mankind is rushing madly to its death 
Intent upon the trail of selfishness; 
It studies only to acquire, to gain. 
That Avarice may feast and glut itself. 

The question, "What is man?" is answered not; 
Nor know we who his brother. "What is life?" 
Remains the modern riddle of the Sphinx. 
The head and heart are sunk in selfish greed. 
And this, our Golden Age, now worships gold, 
And blindly thinks it thus meets destiny. 

What are the watered stocks, the boards of trade, 
The gamblers in a nation's bread, the bonds 
Exacting Shylock's pound of flesh, the blood 
And tears that feed the maw of endless greed? 



-46- 



What mean they when in truth a goodly name 
Is rather to be chosen than great wealth? 

In other words, what matter if one gain 

The entire world and thereby lose his soul? 

The only gold is character; real worth 

Is measured in the moral scale upheld 

By righteousness; the treasures of the mind 

Require no bars, no thieves break thro' and steal. 



PAT rUAINlNBGAIN'S MISHAP 

(Re-told) 

You've heard of Masters this and that and Masters 

then and now. 
Of Masters great of human speech, of Masters of the 

plow; 
Of Masters of the village school, those Masters of 

the rod, 
But Flannegan himself was only master of the hod. 

When Pat had carried brick and mort to build mx 

stories high, 
And all was put in readiness for carpenters to ply 
Their planes and saws in finishing the building up in 

style. 
The masons all, as is their wont, cleaned up their 

muss the while. 

As in all modern buildings, they had left what's call- 
ed a '^ift;" 

An Englishman would call it so, though Pat called it 
a "shift;" 

But in our own blest language it is only, fair 'to 'say, 

'Twas nothing but a common chute, or elevator way. 

The masons on the highest floor were gathering the 
mort, 



— ^7— 

And broken brick and rubbish there of every kind 

and sort, 
Within an empty barrel to which they had tied a rope 
Suspended through a pully down the elevator slope. 

Now Pat was at the lower end to let the barrel down, 
By paying the rope overhand; and none in all the 

town 
Were better trained and built than he for just such 

work as this, 
For all the work he ever did was never done amiss. 

The masons called out "Ready there?" and Pat em- 
braced the rone; 

His frame was full of massive strength, his heart was 
full of hope; 

And when it came to answering, Pat wasn't very slow 

And as he called out "Aye, aye. Sir!" they let the 

barrel go. 

Now morter is quite heavy, yes, and brick weigh 

much like lead; 
The two combined weighed more than Pat, tho' he 

had been well fed; 
A principle of physics this, and matter of renown 
That Flannegan went up the chute just as the load 

came down. 

Just half way they collided with ajar and jolt so hard. 
It tore the clothing off of Pat, and skin at least a yard; 
But heavenward poor Patrick went, still clinging to 

the rope 
Until he hit the ceiling, which was hardly base for 

hope. 

Now when the barrel struck below with such tremen- 
dous force 

At once it burst the bottom out and spilled the stuff, 
of course. 

The brick and mort upon the floor, a sorry mess in- 
deed, 



JAN 28 1904 



—48— 

Resembled what has well been called, "Destruction 
gone to seed." 

Now where, while this was happening, yes, where in- 
deed was Pat? 

In language of a Congressman, "Where was the fel- 
low at?" 

The barrel being empty now, it's easy to explain 

That Patrick, being heavier, just shot the chiite again. 

But sad the lot of Flannegan, and bitter was his cup. 

For now his aim was bad indeed — 'twas down instead 
of up; 

And as he struck the pile of brick with a dull sicken- 
ing thud, 

There fell the barrel from above, — and Patrick's name 
was mud. 

Within a city of the dead there is a modest stone. 
That tells the tale, the awful tale, a sad, sad tale I own. 
Of how, upon a certain time, Pat, now so cold and 

mute. 
Went up the flume, as one might say, or rather, shot 

the chute. 






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